What is a Male Mid-life Crisis?

Comedian Dave Barry reminds us how the Presidency might be the answer to his question,"What is a Male Mid-life Crisis?" *

"Basically, [a male midlife crisis] is when a man, reaching his middle years, takes stock of his life and decides that it isn't enough. Although he has a loving wife, nice kids, a decent job, and many caring friends, he feels that he is trapped-that there is still something more he must do, something that we will call, for want of a better term, "making a fool of himself."

"... There is virtually no end to the humiliating activities (see chapter 2, on "hair transplants") that a man will engage in while in the throes of a midlife crisis. He will destroy a successful practice as a certified public accountant to pursue a career in Roller Derby. He will start wearing enormous pleated pants and designer fragrances ("Ralph Lauren's Musque de Stud Hombre: For the Man Who Wants a Woman Who Wants a Man Who Smells Vaguely Like a Horse"). He will encase his pale, porky body in tank tops and a "pouch"-style swimsuit the size of a gum wrapper. He will buy a boat shaped like a marital aid. He will abandon his attractive and intelligent wife to live with a 19-year-old aerobics instructor who once spent an entire summer reading a single Glamour magazine article entitled "Ten Tips for Terrific Toenails."

"And if this is a particularly severe case of the male midlife crisis, if this male has has no idea whatsoever how pathetic he looks, if he has lost all touch with reality, he will run for President of the United States. This is why every fourth year, just before the caucuses, Iowa becomes positively infested with obscure, uninspiring, middle-aged political figures, racing around the state with an air of great urgency and self-importance... You see this on the evening news, and your reaction, as an informed voter, is: "What is possessing these dorks?" ... No, these tragically misguided men are acting on their own, trying to deny their own humdrum mediocrity, seeking desperately to inject some drama into their lives, and we could view the whole thing as harmless entertainment were it not for the fact that one of them invariably winds up becoming the leader of the Free World." (Barry 1990, 74-77)

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